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The Ministry of Justice has established a working group to examine a draft extradition treaty with Russia, the latest step in a process that could ultimately see prominent fugitives deported, a ministry spokesman said yesterday. …

Although the number of migrant workers who crossed to Thailand through the Poipet International Border Checkpoint decreased slightly from 2013 to 2014, the number of people who died while working in Thailand appeared to increase, a provincial official said this week. …

A secretary of state at the Foreign Affairs Ministry on Tuesday defended the government’s widely criticized imprisonment of 11 activists and an opposition official during a closed-door meeting with a visiting U.S. diplomat.

Daniel Russel, an assistant secretary of state at the U.S. government’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, visited Cambodia on Tuesday and met with Foreign Affairs Ministry Secretary of State Ouch Borith. …

Mr. Borith told reporters that police were justified in arresting the activists because they had been affecting public order. …

Mr. Borith also defended the imprisonment of CNRP official Meach Sovannara, who was also arrested in November over his role in a violent clash that erupted during a protest on July 15 that left a number of district security guards with injuries. …

Rights group Adhoc on Tuesday urged the government to work harder to help Cambodian domestic workers still suffering abuse from their employers in Malaysia or from the Cambodian recruitment agencies that sent them there, including 63 women the organization says have effectively disappeared.

At a press conference in Phnom Penh, Adhoc said 122 women in Malaysia were either missing, unreachable by relatives, working under forced contract extensions, or had unresolved claims of unpaid wages or physical abuse— even as the government prepares to send more. …

On Tuesday, Adhoc president Thun Saray said the Cambodian government was not doing enough to help the women it has already sent. …

Of the 122 women deemed victims of abuse, Adhoc said that relatives in Cambodia have been unable to contact 29 of them for the past several months. Another 63 have not been reachable for at least a year and are considered to have effectively disappeared, the rights group said. …

Thai soldiers admitted to burning alive two men last week who may have been undocumented Cambodians, Battambang military officials said yesterday.

Cambodian officers said their Thai counterparts informed them that on the night of January 7, four Cambodians illegally crossed the border with intentions of evading taxes on a smuggled motorbike. …

“Officials of the Cambodian Embassy are now cooperating with the Thai authorities to examine the bodies. We … and Thai [authorities] will identify the nationality of the bodies and find the victim’s families since Thailand is claiming those bodies could belong to Thai people too,” said Koy Kuong, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. …

Cambodia is managing here today the recovery of missing ancient heritage objects that might be in a cache of relics confiscated from a Thai general arrested for various offenses.

About a thousand objects of different types were taken a month ago from the high officer in disgrace, Pongpat Chayaphan, on charges of high treason, corruption, misconduct, smuggling, and association with criminals. …

Cambodia is seeking access to the scores of artefacts seized from disgraced former crime-buster Lt-General Pongpat Chayaphan to determine if any of them belong to it, diplomatic sources said yesterday.

Bowornwej Rungrujee, director-general of the Fine Arts Department, early this month offered to send back some of the 50 artefacts worth more than Bt50 million found in the treasure trove hidden by Pongpat to their countries of origin.

The Cambodian foreign ministry has instructed its embassy in Bangkok to seek permission from Thai authorities to view and photograph those objects, which may been taken out of the country legally or illegally. …

Ignoring objections and even vague threats made by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Cambodian activists in South Korea plan to stage a protest on Sunday ahead of a five-day summit Prime Minister Hun Sen is scheduled to attend on December 10.

Around 1,500 opposition supporters intend to rally in Seoul and sign a petition demanding jailed Cambodia National Rescue Party member Meach Sovannara’s immediate release, according to an organiser. …

“[Sovannara] created our youth group in Korea, so the Cambodian workers in Korea consider him a hero,” said Yim Sinorn, president of the CNRP-aligned Youth Movement. …

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) said in a statement this week that under the new minimum wage workers can actually earn up to $250 per month, though others were quick to label the figure exaggerated.

The Ministry of Labour last week approved the new wage in Cambodia’s garment sector, which comes on top of legally required benefits such as transportation, accommodation and meal allowances. The new wage of $128 – up from $100 – will go into effect January 1. …

On Saturday, Banteay Meanchey border police received a desperate call.

More than 80 Cambodian migrants, including women and children, were locked in a house in Thailand. They were being starved and abused. Two boys, begging their captors for food, were kicked to death. So said the voice on the other end of the phone, a self-professed 26-year-old undocumented migrant who had trusted two Thai brokers to lead him to higher paying employment across the border. He pleaded with the police to come and find them.

The call set in motion a joint Cambodian-Thai investigation, and prompted local media reports. A search and rescue party was sent to Samut Prakan province, just south of Bangkok, where the caller said they had been taken.

Police scoured the area, but found nothing. They tried calling the man again, but his number was disconnected.

The problem, they concluded yesterday afternoon, was that the call had been fake.​ …

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday that the country will take in refugees from Australia on a voluntary basis, stressing that accepting asylum seekers is part of an international obligation for Cambodia. …

Hun Sen said a Cambodian working group will interview those refugees and accept them if they want to live in Cambodia; instead, if they don’t want to come, it’s their rights. …

Long Visalo, secretary of state with the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a press conference on Monday that a small number of refugees will be resettled in Cambodia later this year or early next year. …

Six Cambodian women trafficked to China to become brides and seven Cambodian victims of labor exploitation in Saudi Arabia will be repatriated by the end of the month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Monday. …

Vietnam foreign ministry spokesperson on Thursday requests the Cambodian administration to “take effective measures to stop those wrongful actions of protesters, which are not in line with the traditional friendship and sound relationship between Vietnam and Cambodia.”​ …

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